How to Manage Clients Effectively - A Guide for Business Owners - Part 1 of 3

The saying goes: “The customer is always right”, but if you are a business owner you know that it’s not that simple. There are clients out there that would seemingly rather see your business collapse in on itself than not get their way. From what I’ve learned over the years, the trick is to manage their expectations right from the start.

Managing expectations

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When looking at the business models of some of the most successful companies in the world you might notice a pattern in their processes and protocols. I have been doing this often for the last few years and most of the time I am able to quickly draw a maze in my head that resembles their service offerings. It is generally laid out very well to make it easy for you to understand. Take a take-away franchise for example; your choices are limited to the menu that is set out in front of you. There would be specials running with their rules and limitations and if you want anything out of the ordinary there would either be a few predetermined steps to follow or the person behind the counter will simply explain that they do not offer this. Your choices and limitations are made very clear to you – they are managing your expectations right from the start.

Establish processes and protocols and stick to them for dear life

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It might seem easy enough to establish processes and protocols in a business that, for example, only sells a few food items. Although, in my experience, even the simplest business model is way more complex behind the scenes than you might think it is. I have found it particularly hard to establish routines that would suit various scenarios in our software development company, but when I look back on the last 5 years, we have certainly come a long way. Clients are now told right from the start how we on-board and handle projects. I think, in the past we were so focused on getting clients on-board that we did not really care about the circumstances and the amount of promises we had to make to land the client. This turned out to be a costly lesson to learn. DO NOT set the wrong precedent in the beginning. An easy example of this is; once you’ve landed a big client you tend to be excited at the start. You don’t mind answering his/her calls after working hours, but you eventually become frustrated with the amount of calls you receive after hours. The sad truth is, you only have yourself to blame for this. Set your limitations and stick to them no matter what. Don’t dig holes for yourself.

Work on that poker face and play it cool

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Try not to show prospective clients that you are desperate for their work, no matter how much you might be. Play it cool. Don’t be shy to set a meeting for three days later, even if you don’t have anything planned for the next few days. Your time is valuable, it is just as important for you to sit and work on business strategies and, well, protocols and processes like these, if they need some work.

Prospective clients quickly learn to respect a business owner that follows strict procedures. They’ll want to work with you for that reason – it shows you’re in control and you know what you’re doing.

Keep your clients up to date

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Try not to give your clients a chance to ask you for updates. Even if there’s no real progress to report on, be transparent, tell them exactly what is going on. If a new prospective client calls or mails to request a quote or a meeting, reply straight away. No matter how busy you are at that point in time. It doesn’t take longer than 2 minutes to write a mail simply to acknowledge that you have received their request and you will get to it in X amount of hours. Again, there’s nothing wrong with showing that you are busy. There is a famous saying that goes something like this: “if you want something done properly give it to the guy that’s always busy” – I think what this quote implies is that there is a reason why that person is so busy, he/she must have a good reputation for delivering quality service.

In conclusion

I hope that you have found this post informative and if you have any further questions on the topic, please don’t hesitate to ask me in the comments below, I am very passionate about business and I love helping. I have quite a lot to say on this topic so I have decided to do a 3 part series to cover as much as possible - check back soon for the next post!

Thanks for reading
Sincerely, @BegToDiffer